Amelia Mary Earhart (/ˈɛərhɑːrt/ AIR-hart; born July 24, 1897; disappeared July 2, 1937; declared dead January 5, 1939) was an American aviation pioneer. On July 2, 1937, she disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the world. During her life, Earhart embraced celebrity culture and women's rights, and since her disappearance has become a global cultural figure. She was the first female pilot to fly solo non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean and set many other records. She was one of the first aviators to promote commercial air travel, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences, and was instrumental in the formation of the Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots.

Earhart was born and raised in Atchison, Kansas, and developed a passion for adventure at a young age, steadily gaining flying experience from her twenties. In 1928, she became a celebrity after becoming the first female passenger to cross the Atlantic by airplane. In 1932, she became the first woman to make a nonstop solo transatlantic flight, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for her achievement. In 1935, she became a visiting faculty member of Purdue University as an advisor in aeronautical engineering and a career counselor to female students. She was a member of the National Woman's Party and an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment. She was one of the most inspirational American figures from the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s. Her legacy is often compared to that of the early career of pioneer aviator Charles Lindbergh, as well as First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt for their close friendship and lasting influence on women's causes.

In 1937, during an attempt to become the first woman to complete a circumnavigational flight of the globe, flying a Lockheed Model 10-E Electra airplane, Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan disappeared near Howland Island in the central Pacific Ocean. The two were last seen in Lae, New Guinea, their last land stop before Howland Island, a very small location where they were intending to refuel. It is generally believed that they ran out of fuel before they found Howland Island and crashed into the ocean near their destination. Nearly one year and six months after she and Noonan disappeared, Earhart was officially declared dead. She would have been 41 years of age.

The mysterious nature of Earhart's disappearance has caused much public interest in her life. Her airplane has never been found, which has led to speculation and conspiracy theories about the outcome of the flight. Decades after her presumed death, Earhart was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1968 and the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1973. Several commemorative memorials in the United States have been named in her honor; these include a commemorative US airmail stamp, an airport, a museum, a bridge, a cargo ship, an earth-fill dam, a playhouse, a library, and multiple roads and schools. She also has a minor planet, planetary corona, and lunar crater named after her. Numerous films, documentaries, and books have recounted Earhart's life, and she is ranked ninth on Flying's list of the 51 Heroes of Aviation.

Amelia Mary Earhart was born on July 24, 1897, in Atchison, Kansas, as the daughter of Samuel "Edwin" Stanton Earhart (1867–1930) and Amelia "Amy" Earhart (née Otis; 1869–1962). Amelia was born in the home of her maternal grandfather Alfred Gideon Otis (1827–1912), who was a former judge in Kansas, the president of Atchison Savings Bank, and a leading resident of the town. Earhart was the second child of the marriage after a stillbirth in August 1896. She was of part-German descent; Alfred Otis had not initially favored the marriage and was not satisfied with Edwin's progress as a lawyer.

According to family custom, Amelia Earhart was named after her two grandmothers Amelia Josephine Harres and Mary Wells Patton. From an early age, Amelia was the dominant sibling while her sister Grace Muriel Earhart (1899–1998), two years her junior, acted as a dutiful follower. Amelia was nicknamed "Meeley" and sometimes "Millie", and Grace was nicknamed "Pidge"; both girls continued to answer to their childhood nicknames well into adulthood. Their upbringing was unconventional; Amy Earhart did not believe in raising her children to be "nice little girls". The children's maternal grandmother disapproved of the bloomers they wore, and although Amelia liked the freedom of movement they provided, she was sensitive to the fact the neighborhood's girls wore dresses.

The Earhart children seemed to have a spirit of adventure and would set off daily to explore their neighborhood. As a child, Amelia Earhart spent hours playing with sister Pidge, climbing trees, hunting rats with a rifle, and sledding downhill. Some biographers have characterized the young Amelia as a tomboy. The girls kept worms, moths, katydids and a tree toad they gathered in a growing collection. In 1904, with the help of her uncle, Amelia Earhart constructed a home-made ramp that was fashioned after a roller coaster she had seen on a trip to St. Louis, Missouri, and secured it to the roof of the family tool shed. Following Amelia's well-documented first flight, she emerged from the broken wooden box that had served as a sled with a bruised lip, a torn dress and a "sensation of exhilaration", saying: "Oh, Pidge, it's just like flying!"

In 1907, Edwin Earhart's job as a claims officer for the Rock Island Railroad led to a transfer to Des Moines, Iowa. The next year, at the age of 10, Amelia saw her first aircraft at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines. Their father tried to interest his daughters in taking a flight but after looking at the rickety "flivver", Amelia promptly asked if they could go back to the merry-go-round. She later described the biplane as "a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting".